EPISODE 6

My name is Alex Rolland, and I am the Nivenger…

SOMETIME IN THE PAST

The toddler was fast asleep in his semi large room. The plush bedding had almost swallowed him up, the sparkling white sheets and wool soft duvet shielding him from the slight cool in the room. Outside, there was a terrible thunder storm. The trees visible from the uncurtained window swayed and lurched violently, creaking so loud. However, the four year old was oblivious to it all.

At about twelve thirty in the deep of the night, the door into the toddler’s room burst open and a tall and lanky man ran inside, partially dressed. The man’s hands were moving about his body, fastening zips, buttoning buttons, and tucking in his shirt, even as he leapt onto the bed to grab the toddler. Outside there was a little commotion, but the man ignored this as he yanked the sleeping boy from his bed and began to retreat out of the room.

The toddler didn’t really awake until he was standing sleepy-eyed and wondering what was happening in the middle of the extremely opulent looking living room. The man who had grabbed him was now well dressed, complete with suit and tie. Next to him was a remarkably beautiful woman dressed in a red silk gown. She was the express image of class and grace. For a brief moment, they both looked down on the boy, and there was one expression that was common in their faces: sadness.

The toddler looked back up at them, frowning. He still hadn’t understood what was happening; to him this was all part of an elaborate dream—he believed he was still asleep. Thunder struck, causing both man and woman to flinch; but it was not the terrible thunder that had caused this reaction. It was the sound of breaking windows coming from one of the rooms up stairs. The dreaded man, whom they feared, had breached the house.

The woman hefted the boy unto her arms and dashed for the main doors, while the man retrieved a small pistol he had in a hidden compartment by the large screen TV. At the door, he grabbed the keys to his Peugeot, and together with his wife they ran into the rain.

The night was dark and an absolutely void dominated the sky. They lived in a small estate by the lagoon. Their car was sitting in the driveway. The woman leapt into the passenger’s seat, while the man got into the driver’s seat. The moment he started the car, he saw the man exit from the main doors.

This man was the picture of death itself. He wore a black outfit with a hood, and arrow, and a quiver full of razor sharp arrows. The hooded figure looked up at them, his facial features hidden in the darkness of his hood, and the man felt his heart cut in his chest. He threw the gear in reverse and drove out of the driveway into a narrow road—the one that led to the main gates. Once he swerved into this path, he put the pedal to the metal and his car jumped into speed, breezing out of the gate and shooting down the main road in a couple of seconds.

As they turned into another main road, the man saw the hooded figure through his rear view mirror; he was standing in the middle of the road, looking at their escaping car, seemingly undisturbed by that fact that his quarry was getting away.

“Why are we running,” the woman said a little while later, cuddling the toddler who was already asleep.

The man didn’t reply the woman. He looked several times in his rear view mirror to confirm that they had escaped the hooded murderer.

The woman continued. “You know we can never outrun the man in the mask…”

It was a sad truth. Many had tried and had failed. The man knew he and his wife and their child in her hands were already dead. And there was nothing he could do about it. It pained him.

The man looked at his wife. “I’m sorry… It should have never gotten to this. We should never have crossed them…”

At that, an arrow sank into the windshield. The force of impact caused the arrow to puncture the windshield and caused an instant crack, which spread to every corner of the glass. The man, unnerved by this, lost control of the vehicle, which swerved off the road and crashed into a tree at the side.

For a few minutes, both man and woman were bloodied and unconscious. The child, however, seemed unhurt because it was at this moment he truly woke up. Once he saw that he was in a mangled car with his parents bleeding and unconscious, he began to wail. However, the drops of rain that pelted the car, the eerie trees, and the asphalt of the road swallowed his cry.

The boy watched as his mom and dad snapped awake at the distinct sound of footfalls. He watched as terror colored their gaze as the man in the hood appeared at the side.

The boy heard as the masked man said in an incredibly dreadful voice, “Mr. and Mrs. Rolland, you have failed this city.” And then the man drew an arrow, notched it, and let loose, a set of actions that took exactly one second to execute. The arrow went through the man’s heart and he was killed instantly.

The wife saw this and screamed. Her scream further irritated her child, who wailed even louder. The woman ignored the assassin for a moment and began to tend to her crying baby as though her life was not about to end.

At the last moment, she whispered into his ears. “Alex Rolland, avenge you father and mother. Make them pay. You have all you need…” And the arrow pieced her heart, killing her instantly too. The masked man aimed for the baby boy, and for a minute he would have killed him. But then he decided against it and left the car, vanishing into the night.

The boy remained in the vehicle, crying aloud until he was exhausted—no one came to his aid for no one knew what colossal injustice had been done at that roadside. After an hour, a group of three men appeared by the car. They neither spoke English nor French.

“Etot mal’chik budet khorosho?” said one. It was Russian and it meant this boy will do?

“Da,” said the other. Yes.

And so they extricated the boy from the clutches of his dead mother, entered a black unmarked van, parked in the middle of the road beside the crash site, and drove away into the night.

PRESENT

The black van sped along the deserted road. The fresh sea air blew through and through the open windows, causing Lexie’s polo shirt to ripple with force. He had a determined look in his eyes as he gunned the car down the road, its high power xenon headlamps piercing the darkness. They were on a major road, but were now turning into a street in upscale Ikoyi residential area.

Lexie Whitehall looked at his roommate, Alex Rolland—the Nivenger. He still could not believe all he had heard, all Alex had told him. He knew there was still more to know about Alex’s intriguing past, but right now he was helping Alex on this mission. He knew it was some sort of test, and if he passed, he and Alex could work together to bring justice to Nigeria.

Alex was already fully donned in his Nivenger gear. He wore a hood, and on his chest was the NYSC logo gleaming in the reflection of light from the headlamps. His facial features were completely hidden under his hood. He had his quiver full and his arrow in his hands. The tension in the van was high. The threat was real.

Two days after Alex had told Lexie that he was the Nivenger, they had spent time researching the Colonel’s house in Ikoyi. With Lexie’s incredible computer skills, they were able to hack into the Ministry of Defense’s servers. They found out two things. One, that the Colonel’s house was built like a fortress with high walls, blast proof doors, and an underground bunker that could withstand a nuclear attack and with doors that had an extremely complex security algorithm that would take Lexie days if not months to crack. They also found out that a unit of highly skilled, extremely deadly military combatants had been assigned to protection duty in the Colonel’s house. It was obvious that the Colonel knew the Nivenger was gunning for him and had prepared for an attack.

Lexi had tried talking Alex out of it; but Alex had given a simple reply. “I will kill all of them. Then I’ll kill him.”

The dreadful tone with which Alex had said that had put the fear of God in Lexie. Now, they were cruising down an adjacent street to the street on which the Colonel’s house stood. The threat was seeming more real now than it was two days ago.

Some minutes later, they got to a three story mansion. It was dark and uninhabited, though the adjoining houses all beamed with bright lights. Lexie parked the car by the gates. There were dead leaves littering the driveway all the way around the huge house. The doors seemed vandalized, the glasses broken or shattered in many places. The walls looked faded in the light from the surrounding houses, and it was clear that the house had been abandoned for several years.

“Wait for me at our designated pickup point,” said the Nivenger in a gruff voice. This was all he said before he alighted from the van. In a crouch, the hooded figure scaled the low fence and disappeared into the house, darkness preceding and darkness following.

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Writing has always been my passion. When I was twelve, while my mates still flipped through picture books and comics, I took an interest in thick-sized, picture-less “story books” that opened me up to a whole new world of possibilities and adventures. However, I did not publish my first book until my second year in Pharmacy School when I’d usually learn about drugs in the day and write fiction in the night. I love writing because I relish the power it gives to create a world of my own where anything and everything is possible. I guess this explains my proclivity for the fantastical.